"Not one person listened to me about what doesn't work"

I recently started feeling unwell and I had developed a mild cough. I did covid tests to be sure and after a few days of testing and feeling progressively worse I decided to call my GP surgery.

The nurse called me back and told me it sounded like my sinuses and not my chest, but they had not seen me to make any factual prognosis. The nurse said they would prescribe a certain antibiotic and I advised them that these do not work on me and never have, I always end up on amoxicillin after trying these, but they were adamant that they would work and sadly I didn't have the energy to argue or advocate for myself.

I took the antibiotics for the 5 days and they in fact did not work and I was much worse so I called back. The same nurse called me back and agreed to see me to listen to my chest. So it was a confirmed chest infection by this point and amoxicillin was the next course of treatment.

3 days later I was shaking, couldn't breathe properly, my heart felt like it was going to burst out my chest and I hadn't slept in days. I called the GP surgery and this time it was my GP that called me and told me they wanted to see me that morning. I cannot fault my GP at all, they were very thorough, got my bloods done, observations and all the checks you would want from a GP.

I was again prescribed different and much stronger antibiotics on the Friday morning. By Saturday morning I thought I was dying. I called 111 and they gave me an appt at King's Cross in Dundee and after waiting for almost an hour after my appt time I was seen. My heart rate was 144 and I couldn't breathe properly and felt like I was going to pass out. The Dr there listened to my chest and called Ninewells straight away to get a chest x-ray done.

So away to Ninewells Acute Medical Unit (ward 14 and 15) we went. I was admitted as a patient and had to get a cannula fitted. I was taken for a chest X-Ray and after a while the Dr came and said it was an atypical infection and my lungs were misty, but they didn't say what kind of infection it was. The Dr asked if I minded getting a swab of my mouth done for testing, it would be sent and the results would be next day. It was also confirmed my kidneys and liver had problem markers and potentially the sac around my heart was inflamed.

That night they administered antibiotics through the cannula and orally and the next day it came back it was a nasty form of pneumonia. So another Dr came and spoke to me at 6 pm the next night and said the best antibiotics was... the very first one I was on that didn't work. But no no, they would work for this. Monday morning I was a shaking mess again and needed yet another antibiotic change, the nurse came and did observations and decided I needed oxygen as mine was too low. 10 minutes later, another nurse came in and took it off me, they didn't know my observations and they were only in because I had asked for paracetamol, but they just decided it wasn't needed.

At this point I felt like crying and I couldn't handle an argument. About 10 minutes later another nurse came in to do observations again and told me to put it back on. I ended up on it for 14 hours. On Tuesday morning I waited 2.5 hours for 2 paracetamol. I was allowed home on Tuesday afternoon and the GP in AMU and myself agreed tea-time would be fine. They told me I need to be careful and have lots of support as my lungs are still struggling. At 1 pm a nurse came in and said I could go and here was my antibiotics etc. I said the Dr and I had spoke about teatime and they said I could stay till teatime but it would need to be in the waiting area. I am still on antibiotics and still have pneumonia.

After that I was totally on my own. Nobody helped me with my bags or anything, even though I could not breathe properly just walking, let alone carrying 2 bags and navigating myself around a hospital on my own which is extremely overwhelming. I found this treatment cold and unnecessary. I wasn't listened to about facts to do with my own body.

And at the end, I was completely abandoned and they still thought nobody could come till 5 pm to pick me up after four days in hospital with pneumonia. One nurse was fantastic, they were incredible and light hearted, but did not administer anything etc. I hope nobody I love or care about ends up in the AMU in Ninewells. Not one person listened to me about what doesn't work, and if they did I maybe wouldn't have ended up in this situation and facing weeks of recovery.